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How to backup your budget Android smartphone to cloud storage

In the cheap mobile phone market, most budget smartphones run the Android operating system. This system is exceptional and offers a very easy to use interface as well as many of the same features you will find on higher priced Apple iPhones or Samsung Galaxy models.

Once such key feature is the ability to back up your important information. As smartphones become more and more prevalent, the ability to backup photos, emails, music and other information is critical. If you are a student or a businessman, your phone holds key information. Lose it and you could be in a serious amount of trouble, especially if it is not backed up somewhere.

And the easiest way to do this is to ensure that your budget smartphone backs itself up automatically to a cloud storage system each time you enter a free Wi-Fi area.

What is cloud storage?

Cloud storage systems are a form of storing data digitally. Users upload their data to servers owned by other companies. Each user is often given a large amount of disk space to store their data, for example, 5 gigs.

Setting up your budget smartphone to back up to a cloud

Now many people will tell you that you can just back up your important data to your own PC and laptop, but this can be risky. These devices also fail, especially if you do not regularly check them for malware or viruses. By backing up into a cloud, you know that your data is safe as companies hosting these clouds have complex backup servers themselves. In other words, our data can never be lost. By backing up to a cloud you are also able to access your data from a multitude of devices, not only your budget smartphone.

So let’s begin!

Start by backing up your Google Account

As an Android budget smartphone user, no doubt you have a Google Account. This account can hold a lot of key information that you need not keep elsewhere such as bookmarks, contacts, phone settings, calendar and apps for example. This needs to be setup, however. Start by accessing your Google account and going into settings/privacy. Make sure the boxes ‘backup my settings’ and ‘automatic restore’ are selected. Also, ensure that under ‘backup account’ you include the Google account you want to backup as some people do have more than one.

Now move onto the account and sync tab. Start by selecting your chosen Google account and make sure all options are ticked.

Backing up photos

Again, the Android operating system can be set to automatically backup any photo’s you have on your phone. This is done through the Instant Upload service. By enabling this, all your photos and videos will be uploaded to your Google Plus account linked to your Google account. They are stored in a folder called ‘From my phone’. If you prefer not to use this Google Plus account, many other third party programs offer uploading of all photos or videos including Photobucket Mobile, Flickr, Instagram and even Facebook.

Backing up email

Backing up your email depends on the email app you use. Should you use Google Mail, well your mail is already on a separate server and not on your phone. So if you do not delete a mail, it will stay there forever.

Should you use Outlook, for example, you can archive your mail to Outlook.com where you will receive free storage space. Depending on which version of Outlook you are currently using, this needs to be setup in the mail program itself. Once done, you can either backup all your mail or drag and drop certain messages to have them put into a cloud storage.

Don’t make the mistake of not backing up important information on your budget smartphone thinking that you will never lose it. You never know when a problem might lead to your losing all of your data.